He became psychotic, sobbed and saluted at television pictures of military
uniforms during the Royal Wedding and believed he was Jesus. He and his family
now believe that the Stamaril inoculation he received was contaminated.

Mr Brabant, 55, an award-winning veteran of the siege of Sarajevo, is
currently in hospital in Copenhagen, the home town of his wife, best-selling
Danish writer Trine Villemann.

Petition: Mr Brabant's wife, Trine Villemann is now trying to obtain the
findings of an investigation

He had the inoculation in April at the East Attica Vaccination Centre in
Athens in preparation for a working trip to the Ivory Coast in West Africa.
Within hours of the injection, his temperature rose to 104F.

Ms Villemann said: ‘Within two or three hours, he was shaking and shivering.
The whole bed was rocking backwards and forward. It was awful.’

He developed insomnia and grew irritable and anxious. After seven days, he
was admitted to a private hospital in Athens, where he began to suffer
delusions.

‘He became psychotic,’ said his wife. ‘It began when doctors couldn’t knock
the fever down. He slid into a place where he didn’t connect with reality. We
were watching the Royal Wedding in hospital on April 29 and he started sobbing
and saluting whenever he saw a military uniform.’

The next evening, Ms Villemann received a call from her husband, who was
crying and convinced he was Jesus.

‘I was absolutely terrified,’ she said. ‘I was trying to keep him on the
phone while texting our translator to call the ward and have someone go into his
room straight away.’

All this was witnessed by the couple’s 12-year-old son, Lukas.

‘He knew now that Daddy was seriously ill,’ she said. ‘My husband never had
any mental illness before this. There is no history of mental illness in his
family. I have checked.’

Mr Brabant has had two further psychotic episodes since April. He recovered
and returned to work, but had a relapse in July and was flown to a psychiatric
hospital in Britain.

The BBC paid his medical bills for his treatment in Athens, but he has been
able to record only occasional reports over the past few months.

He and his family relocated to Copenhagen in the autumn when a new BBC
correspondent, Mark Lowen, was dispatched to report from Athens.

Mr Brabant was taken to hospital again on November 8. In the past two months
he has also had several blood clots on his lungs.

Bad reaction: The Stamaril vaccine that Mr Brabant took

Last week, Ms Villemann started an internet petition in an attempt to draw
attention to her husband’s plight and persuade Sanofi Pasteur, the French
pharmaceutical giant that makes Stamaril, to share the details of its internal
investigation into the case. Ms Villemann, who met her husband during the siege
of Sarajevo when she was a TV producer, said: ‘They ignored me for months until
I started this internet campaign and petition. They just said the vaccine was
fine.’

The case raises disturbing questions for the tens of thousands who have the
yellow fever jab every year. It is a visa requirement for many countries,
including most of Africa.

‘They ignored me for months until I started this internet campaign and
petition. They just said the vaccine was fine.’

Ms Villemann first wrote to Sanofi Pasteur in May. On May 19, she received an
email assuring her that the batch of vaccine had ‘successfully passed all the
technical quality controls prior to its release in Greece’. The company asked Ms
Villemann for her husband’s medical details and she gave it permission to
contact his Greek doctors.

The company issued a statement last month saying: ‘Carefully investigating
all the medical information that was disclosed to us up to July 2011, we have
been unable to establish evidence for a causal relationship between the
administration of the yellow fever vaccine Stamaril and the reported medical
conditions.’

But Mr Brabant’s Athenian doctor left his family in no doubt that he thought
his condition was a result of the vaccine. Ms Villemann said: ‘What has Sanofi
Pasteur actually investigated? And why won’t they share it with us? Was it
stored properly? Was it administered properly? Malcolm cannot remember the
vaccine being taken from a fridge.’

As a result of her petition, Sanofi Pasteur has asked for the latest medical
records for Mr Brabant.

‘We are sympathetic to the situation but in order to make that investigation
we need consent to approach Mr Brabant’s physicians,’ said Paul Hardiman, UK
communications director, who was unaware that the company had already seen Mr
Brabant’s records up to July. Sanofi Pasteur says more than 300million doses of
Stamaril have been distributed over the past 25 years.